I find that if I adopt this mindset I sometimes fail to fully invest myself in my work such that I am working towards my goals. For example, I may read over a text without using my full concentration to analyze it.
It reminds me of this quote:
Said Miyamoto Musashi: "The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him."
http://lesswrong.com/lw/7i/rationality_is_systematized_winning/
I find that if I adopt this mindset I sometimes fail to fully invest myself in my work such that I am working towards my goals
"This mindset" - is that the mindset I described? If you have a more effective mindset, what is it?
What should a rationalist do about confidence? Should he lean harder towards
I don't want to falsely construe these as dichotomous. The real answer will probably dissolve 'confidence' into smaller parts and indicate which parts go where. So which parts of 'confidence' correctly belong in our models of the world (which must never be corrupted) or our motivational systems (which we may cut apart and put together however helps us achieve our goals)? Note that this follows the distinction between epistemic and instrumental rationality.
Eliezer offers a decision criterion in The Sin of Underconfidence:
It makes us stronger to know when to lose hope already, and it makes us stronger to have the mental fortitude to kick our asses into shape so we can do the impossible. Lukeprog prescribes boosting optimism "by watching inspirational movies, reading inspirational biographies, and listening to motivational speakers." That probably makes you stronger too.
But I don't know what to do about saying 'I can do it' when the odds are against me. What do you do when you probably won't succeed, but believing that Heaven's army is at your back would increase your chances?
My default answer has always been to maximize confidence, but I acted this way long before I discovered rationality, and I've probably generated confidence for bad reasons as often as I have for good reasons. I'd like to have an answer that prescribes the right action, all of the time. I want know when confidence steers me wrong, and know when to stop increasing my confidence. I want the real answer, not the historically-generated heuristic.
I can't help but feeling like I'm missing something basic here. What do you think?